State of the Union -- SNAFU

Wednesday

Feb 6, 2013 at 5:20 AM

President Obama will address Congress and the nation on February 12.

William Dameron

There’s the old joke about a president (politician) speaking in a pasture to a group of American Indians. After every assertion he made, the Indians all yelled “oodwa” in unison. The politician thought they were applauding him, but afterward, as the he walked toward his waiting limousine with the chief, the chief pointed down and said, “Careful, Mr. President, don’t step in the oodwa.”

Barry Obama may be the greatest speech reader of all time. He is smooth, articulate, and expressive, knows exactly how and where to emphasize, when to smile, and makes good jokes. However, once I began to see him as smug and arrogant, and once I realized how far to the left he is, I found him harder and harder to stomach. But many aren’t afflicted with these feelings. His speech will be watched by many millions who no doubt like him. But, like his past ones, the president’s State of the Union speech for 2013 is likely to be all oodwa.

What is the state of our union now? Well, we have lots of problems. I imagine we’ll get a list of them from the president, such as: Our nation is afflicted with a lack of fairness, big time. The rich aren’t paying their fair share. We need women in combat. We need Gays in the Boy Scouts, and we need Gay Boy Scout troop leaders – really good for America, especially if you want our boys to grow up Gay. We need comprehensive immigration reform, a.k.a. amnesty. We need new sources of energy (screw the old sources), and we need to invest (translation: spend) more in the economy.

The president is working really hard on all these problems. He’ll gloss over the real problems. We’ll get lots of words about how much he’s done for us so far – the tax cuts he’s made, how he saved the economy, etc. He’ll claim the economy is finally coming out of the doldrums. He’ll say the Affordable Health Care Act is going to really help, although we still need more (unspecified) medical reforms. He’ll claim he’s doing something about the deficit and the debt, but of course, he isn’t. He’ll likely mention entitlement reform, but in terms so vague that it won’t be just kicking the can down the road, it will be kicking it out of the end zone.

The president would have made a really good snake oil salesman in the old west. If you want to understand how much of his speech is likely to be oodwa, it might be good to go back to his 2010 State of the Union speech, which you can read at ABC News or watch a Utube video of at CSPAN video library.

In that speech, he told lots of little stories, got lots of laughs, made lots of claims, and lots of promises which he couldn’t keep (because we have a Congress, although he’s working on that) and a few he did keep. He stretched statistics, lied a bit, and offered lots of gifts to the voters. He gave us many words and lots of oodwa.

I wish we could bring back an honest president for the State of the Union. George Washington, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, U.S. Grant, Harry Truman, and Ronald Reagan are some I believe were honest. I think Reagan was the last totally honest president, although Carter and the Bushes may have been, but were in way over their heads.

An honest president would tell it like it is. We have many problems, and they need real solutions, not snake oil. The real state of the union is SNAFU (Situation normal, all ****ed up.) But, if things go as in the past, all we’ll get is oodwa.

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